Czech
Page is incomplete and requires additional topics. Feel free to add!* External Resources Languages Gulper Local Lingo http://mluvtecesky.net/en Memrise community-created Czech courses Hello! The sounds of Czech Czech is mostly phonetic. If you know how a word is written, you can almost always determine how it is pronounced. The only words which don't follow the rules are recent loan words, but these are mostly taken from English, and so should be familiar. Conversely, if you know how a word is pronounced, you can usually figure out how it is written. The main exceptions are that i & y (as well as í & ý) and mě & mně are pronounced the same. Most letters are pronounced more or less the same as in English. The following guidelines are approximate. You'll get a better idea from listening to the audio of the sentences. Vowels The vowels are as in most European languages. *a is always like the a in father, never like the a in dad. *e is as in let. *i is as in kitten. *o is as in gopher, but without the light w sound which usually follows it in English. *u is as in put. *y is always a vowel, never a consonant, and is indistinguishable from i in most contexts. Each vowel has a short and a long form. The long forms are written á, é, í, ó, ú, and ý, except that ú is replaced by ů everywhere except at the start of a word (or at the start of the word's root after a prefix). The main difference between a short vowel and a long vowel is the length of time spent pronouncing it, except that i/y may undergo a quality change on lengthening (possibly variable by region): *í/ý is as the "ea" sound in cleat. Consonants Many consonants occur in pairs, voiced and unvoiced, like b and p, d and t, or z and s. Sometimes one of the pair is missing. There are also consonants like l and r which don't really fit into either category. VOICED *b is as in English *d is mostly as in English, but if you listen closely, you'll hear that it's pronounced with the tongue closer to the teeth. *ď is a sound that does not exist in English. It sounds roughly like a d followed by a consonantal y, but it is one sound rather than a combination of two. Unless you already know a Slavic or Celtic language, it may take you some time to learn to pronounce this correctly. *g is as in English but is not used much in Czech. *h is as in English. *v is as in English. *z is as in English. *ž is like the sound that the s makes in pleasure or leisure. UNVOICED *c represents a sound which doesn't quite exist in English, but it is very close to the ts as the end of cats. It is, however, a single sound rather than a combination of two. *č is like the ch in chicken. *f is as in English, but is not used much in Czech. *ch is considered a single letter in Czech and is found after h in dictionaries. It is the unvoiced counterpart to h, a sound which no longer exists in most dialects of English. Scots has retained it, for example in Loch Ness. *k is as in English, but a bit softer. *p is as in English, but a bit softer. *s is as in English. *t is as in English, but with the tongue closer to the teeth. *ť is the unvoiced counterpart to ď, and is similarly a sound which does not exist in English. It sounds roughly like a t followed by a consonantal y, but it is one sound rather than a combination of two. OTHER *j is like an English consonantal y, in other words like the y in yellow. *l, m and n are as in English. *ň is roughly like an n followed by a consonantal y, but it is one sound rather than a combination of two. *r is lightly rolled, as in Spanish or Italian, or tapped, as in Scots. *ř is a sound unique to Czech and is the sound the majority foreigners find most difficult to learn. Even some native speakers never learn it properly. It's roughly similar to the combination r+ž, but is a single sound. Combinations Unless mentioned explicitly below, each letter in Czech is simply pronounced independently of any letters which precede or follow it. Some interdependencies exist. *Final consonants are often unvoiced. So a b at the end of a word is pronounced p, a d at the end of a word is pronounced t, etc. *Groups of consonants in the same syllable are pronounced voiced or unvoiced, usually according to the last consonant in the group, so sb is pronounced zb, zt is pronounced st, etc. However, sh is usually pronounced sch instead of the zh one would expect from the "last consonant governs" rule. *As mentioned above, i and y are pronounced the same. However, an i/í (unlike a y/ý) impacts the pronunciation of three consonants if it follows them in a word. When followed by an i/í, a d is pronounced like ď, a t like ť, and an n like ň. *The letter ě is pronounced like a consonantal y followed by an e. When d, t, or n is followed by ě, the pronunciation is as if the consonant changed to a d', t', or ň (resp.) followed by an e. And mě sounds like mně. Gender Gender Every noun in Czech has a gender. The gender can be "masculine", "feminine", or "neuter" and has little relation to actual biological sex. For example dům, which means house, is masculine, and věc, which means thing, is feminine. For words which refer to people, the grammatical gender and biological sex often do coincide, but not always. For example, girl, can be translated into Czech as dívka, holka, or děvče. The first two are feminine, as you might expect, but the last is neuter! Rather confusingly, Czech actually has four genders. "Masculine" is really two genders, "masculine animate" and "masculine inanimate". There will be cases in later lessons where the distinction matters. "Animate" and "inanimate" mean what you would expect them to, so that dům, for example, is masculine inanimate because houses are inanimate objects. Knowing the gender is important because it determines the form of any adjectives which modify the noun. For example, if we want to talk about a young girl we would say mladá dívka or mladá holka, but mladé děvče. As you can see, it's the grammatical gender which is decisive, not reality. The (partly) good news is that it is sometimes possible to guess the gender of the noun from its ending: *Nouns ending in a consonant are mostly masculine. Early examples will include kluk(boy), muž (man), stroj (machine), hrad (castle), dům (house), and two proper names, František and Matěj. *Nouns ending in -a or -e are mostly feminine. Early examples will include holka (girl), žena (woman, wife), ulice (street), láska (love), and two proper names, Kateřina and Žofie. *Nouns ending in -o are almost always neuter. Early examples will include město (city), auto (car), and víno (wine). *Nouns that end in -ě or -í are fairly often neuter, e.g., dítě (child) early in the course, and letiště (airport) and náměstí (square, plaza) later on. Note: Please remember not to try to translate the personal proper names to English in this course. Yes, we are aware that Kateřina may very well correspond to Catherine in English. But it could also be Katherine, Kathryn, Katharine, Katheryn, Katharyn, Katherin, Kathrine, Catharine, Cathryn, and who knows what else. Let's focus on learning Czech in this course, not on "translating" names. The unfortunate challenge is that many nouns do not follow the “rules” given above: *Many nouns that end in a consonant are feminine, e.g., věc (thing), sůl (salt), kost (bone), and postel (bed). *Some nouns that end in -a are masculine, e.g., táta (dad), kolega (colleague), turista(tourist), and terorista (terrorist). *Some nouns that end in -e are masculine, e.g., soudce (judge), or neuter, e.g., děvče(girl), zvíře (animal), moře (sea), and slunce (sun). *Some nouns that end in -ě are feminine, e.g., žákyně (student) and přítelkyně (girlfriend). *Some nouns that end in -í are masculine, e.g., vrchní (waiter), or feminine, e.g., paní(lady). Adjectives There are two types of adjectives in Czech, hard and soft. They differ in their endings: In the singular nominative form, which is all that we are learning for now, the hardadjectives have endings that depend on the gender as follows: *-ý in masculine, e.g., mladý muž (young man) or velký strom (big tree) *-á in feminine, e.g., mladá žena (young woman) *-é in neuter, e.g., malé dítě (small child) In the singular nominative form, the soft adjective endings are the same regardless of gender, -í: *další muž (another man), další žena (another woman), and další dítě (another child) *poslední dům (the last house), poslední věc (the last thing), and poslední zvíře (the last animal) For now, consider nominative the base form of many words. Demonstratives Czech doesn't have articles. Mladá dívka could be young girl, a young girl, or the young girl, depending on context. Czech has a variety of ways of making clear which is meant when the distinction is important, including the word order, as we will see in later skills. For now, we will only examine the demonstrative adjectives that are sometimes (not always!) used in place of the English definite article. The Czech demonstrative adjective that partly overlaps with the definite article "the" and the demonstrative pronoun "that" has the following singular nominative forms: *ten in masculine, e.g., ten muž (the man, that man) *ta in feminine, e.g., ta dívka (the girl, that girl) *to in neuter, e.g., to dítě (the child, that child) Demonstrative adjectives and regular adjectives can usually be combined, and usually in that order: ta mladá dívka (the young girl, that young girl). Pronunciation note Make sure to review the Tips & Notes provided with the initial skill to appreciate why člověk and Matěj sound the way they do.'' To be sg. To be: singular The singular forms of the verb to be are In Czech, unlike English, the subject pronouns (written in parentheses in the above table) are optional. Both Já jsem and Jsem mean I am. As a general rule, if you add unnecessary words then they are likely to be interpreted as emphatic, so Já jsemwould generally be interpreted as I am. There are exceptions to this rule. There are certain words which Czech likes to have in the second position in a sentence, and it will sometimes add a redundant subject pronoun to accomplish this instead of reshuffling the whole sentence. (The second "position" does not simply refer to showing up after the first word but rather after the first unit of meaning.) As a singular neuter subject pronoun, ono is usually replaced with the more general neuter pronoun to. However, to has many additional meanings and uses, in some of which it may not even be neuter or singular. We have already seen its use as the definite article or the demonstrative adjective "that" for singular neuter nouns, e.g., to děvče (the girl/that girl). Not to be The corresponding negative forms are In general, Czech verbs can by negated by adding ne to the beginning of the word. Note that je -> není is an exception, but fortunately such exceptions are exceedingly rare. Yes/no questions In writing, Czech yes/no questions often look just like statements, except they end in a question mark. For example, Jsi holka? looks just like Jsi holka. When spoken, questions of this type differ from the corresponding statements in the sentence intonation, which typically rises at the end for yes/no questions but falls for statements. Informal vs formal forms of address The ty forms (pronoun and/or the verb) above are informal singular, in the sense that they are used for addressing single individuals with whom you are on a first name basis or who are much younger than you. The singular formal form of address matches the plural form and is introduced in the next skill. To be pl. To be: plural The plural forms of the verb to be, including the negative forms, are Informal vs formal forms of address The vy forms above serve both for singular formal and plural forms of address. Plural forms intro Several plural nouns and adjectives are used in this skill. NOUNS This skill introduces a few plural nouns: muži (men), kluci (boys), ženy (women), holky (girls), děti (children), and zvířata (animals). This small sample does not reflect the full range of plural formation possibilities in Czech; consider it a trailer. A few initial observations: *Animate masculine nouns ending in a consonant in the singular usually append -i to form the plural, e.g., muž becomes muži(men) and kluk becomes kluci (boys). Note the consonant shift from k to c before the -i. *Feminine nouns ending in -a in the singular form the plural by replacing the -a with -y, e.g., žena becomes ženy (women) and holka becomes holky (girls). *Neuter nouns ending in -e/ě in the singular sometimes form the plural by replacing the -e/ě with -ata, e.g., zvířata (animals). However, the plural of the neuter noun dítě is an early warning that things are not always what they seem in Czech. Instead of the expected (but non-existent) neuter "díťata", we get the feminine plural děti (children). Note we have focused on living beings in this skill. We will see other plural formation patterns very soon, including those for inanimate objects. ADJECTIVES In the plural nominative form, soft adjective endings stay the same -í across all genders. The hard adjectives differ in endings between the genders predictably: *-í in animate masculine, e.g., mladí muži (young men) *-é in inanimate masculine, e.g., velké stromy (big trees) *-é in feminine, e.g., mladé ženy (young women) *-á in neuter, e.g., malá zvířata (small animals) The consonant shift from k to c also impacts the animate masculine hard adjective before the -í ending. Thus we get from velký kluk (big boy) to velcí kluci (big boys). Questions 1 Questions Yes-no questions English usually uses word order (in addition to rising terminal intonation when speaking) to distinguish yes-no questions from statements. Czech often doesn't do this, instead relying on intonation in spoken Czech and leaving the question mark at the end of the sentence as the only written hint that we are dealing with a question. For example Jsi kluk? looks just like Jsi kluk., while the usual English word order in the question Are you a boy? clearly differs from that in the statement You are a boy. Question-word questions The English question words (a.k.a. the wh-words) have their counterparts in Czech, e.g., kdo (who), co (what, as in what thing), kde (where), jak (how), proč (why), jaký (what, as in what kind of), který (which), and čí (whose). These words are typically used to start the questions in Czech, much like in English: Kdo je ta dívka? (Who's that girl?) Co je to? (What is that?) Kde jsem? (Where am I?) Jak stará jsi? (How old are you?) Proč je to malé? (Why is it small?) Jaký muž je Matěj? (What kind of man is Matěj?) Jaká je Kateřina? (What is Kateřina like?) Který muž je František (Which man is František?) Čí dítě jsem? (Whose child am I?) New noun This skill introduces a few nouns, of which the masculine animate noun manžel (husband) is noteworthy. It has an odd plural, manželé, which is also grammatically masculine animate and may mean "husbands" or "husband and wife". Plural Plural The endings of nouns and any adjectives and demonstratives which may modify them reflect the grammatical gender. For the masculine gender, the endings additionally reflect the animate vs inanimate nature of what the noun refers to. Consonant types To get further into the Czech grammar, we will need to learn to recognize which consonants are soft and which are not. The soft consonants are: č, ď, ň, ř, š, ť, ž, c, and j. For now, let's lump all the other consonants simply as non-soft. Some of the non-soft consonants undergo consonant shifts when an -i or -í ending is appended. The consonant shifts are: Additionally, while this will not be a shift in spelling like those shown above, recall that the hard consonants d, t, and n will sound as their soft counterparts ď, ť, and ň, respectively, when followed by an i or í. Masculine animate nouns Two patterns of plural formation for masculine animate nouns appear in this skill: At this stage, the main difference between the soft and non-soft pattern is that the soft consonants do not undergo consonant shift on plural formation, while a few of the non-soft ones do. (Other differences will come up later.) Note also another surprising plural, that of člověk (person, sometimes man). Instead of the expected but wrong "člověci", we have, out of the blue, lidé (people). At least this time the gender remains the expected masculine animate. Masculine inanimate nouns Two patterns of plural formation for masculine inanimate nouns appear in this skill: This skill introduces the plural form of dům (house), which is domy rather than the expected "důmy". The vowel shift (shortening) from ů to o also impacts several other nouns we will meet later in the course. Additionally, this skill introduces the p)ural form of den (day), which is dny rather than the expected "deny". In many nouns ending in a sequence of e and a consonant, the e gets dropped when an ending is added after the consonant. Such nouns can be masculine or feminine. Feminine nouns Three patterns of plural formation for feminine nouns appear in this skill: Some feminine nouns whose singular nominative forms end in a consonant behave differently than shown here, but we will save those for later. Neuter nouns Three patterns of plural formation for neuter nouns appear in this skill: Recall the irregular gender shift from the neuter dítě (child) to the feminine děti (children). It is as if a singular feminine "dět" existed (but no, it does not). The demonstrative adjective ten The Czech demonstrative adjective that partly overlaps with the definite article "the" and the demonstrative pronoun "those" has the following plural nominative forms: *ti in masculine animate, e.g., ti muži (the men, those men) *ty in masculine inanimate, e.g., ty stromy (the trees, those trees) *ty in feminine, e.g., ty dívky (the girls, those girls) *ta in neuter, e.g., ta zvířata (the animals, those animals) Demonstrative adjectives and regular adjectives can usually be combined, and usually in that order: ty mladé dívky (the young girls, those young girls). Now that we know the singular and plural forms of a bunch of nouns and adjectives in the three or four genders in the nominative case, we are ready to take on the next case. Food Food: Accusative Please read the introductory paragraphs on cases and the summary of the adjective endings in the nominative and the accusative in the neighboring Animals skill. We needed to conserve room here. Masculine animate nouns No new masculine animate nouns appear in this skill. Masculine inanimate nouns HRAD PATTERN STROJ PATTERN Feminine nouns ŽENA PATTERN ULICE PATTERN No new nouns following this pattern appear in this skill. PÍSEŇ PATTERN The noun žízeň that appears in this skill in the singular accusative form does not follow the previously introduced feminine patterns. The official declension paradigm word for žízeň is píseň(song). It will make its appearance much later in the course, but let’s include the table to begin building awareness of this complication. VĚC PATTERN Neuter nouns MĚSTO PATTERN ZVÍŘE PATTERN The newly introduced kuře (chicken) is actually the official declension paradigm word for this pattern, so we will switch to it for the remaining rows of the tree. NÁMĚSTÍ PATTERN No new nouns following this pattern appear in this skill. A few extra verbs As you can imagine, the Czech verb endings will also supply lots of information. For now, let's not try to organize them into systematic classes of patterns; there will be plenty of that later. Instead, here is a table of the present tense forms for the five new verbs that appear in this skill. The subject of the verb (even if it is an omitted subject pronoun) determines the verb ending by its number (singular vs plural) and person (first, second, or third). That's it. The present tense is not impacted by the gender of its subject in Czech. The Czech verb "eat" shown here is mostly used to describe the consumption of food by humans or for humanized animals, such as pets. The neighboring skill on this row teaches the standard Czech alternative often used if the eater is a general animal. Note that the only standard form for the 3rd person plural jedí is a source of trouble for many Czechs, who incorrectly think that it should be “jí“. (One day it may become acceptable in the standard, but we are not there yet.) Also note the dual 1st person singular endings -ju/-ji and 3rd person plural endings -jou/-jí. The first member in each pair is more informal and the second is bookish, in some contexts even prissy. The dual 3rd person plural endings -ejí/-í are typically comparable in terms of formality, although the usage ratios differ from verb to verb. As noted previously, almost all verbs in Czech form negatives by being prefixed with ne-. For example, we can say Kateřina nepije.(Kateřina doesn’t drink.) The 3rd person singular form není will remain the only exception we deal with for a while. Animals Animals: Accusative Above this row of the tree, we were dealing almost exclusively with the verb "be" and with nouns and adjectives in the nominative case. That would only take us so far. Maybe we could talk about what or who something or someone is, what something or someone is like, or (to some extent) where something or someone is. But if we are ever going to move from states to actions, we will need more verbs and more cases. Simply put, the case is a grammatical category that provides information on the function of the word (usually a noun, adjective, pronoun, or numeral) relative to the other words around it. In English, much of this information comes from the position of the word. Czech is one of the languages with a fairly free word order, and other clues are needed. The nominative case is used to "name" the subject of a verb, i.e., the "doer" of whatever action is being described. When we say František je vysoký. (František is tall), "František" is in the nominative case. (So is "vysoký".) If František eats something instead of just being tall, he will still be in the nominative, but what he eats will be in a different case. The accusative case is mostly used to mark the object of a verb, i.e., the target of the action, and often without preposition. Whatever František is eating normally ends up in the accusative. To tell the accusative from the nominative, we need to pay attention to the endings, just like we did when making the plural. Demonstrative adjective forms SINGULAR PLURAL Hard adjective endings SINGULAR PLURAL Soft adjective endings SINGULAR PLURAL Masculine animate nouns KLUK PATTERN MUŽ PATTERN Masculine inanimate nouns No new masculine inanimate nouns appear in this skill. Feminine nouns ŽENA PATTERN ULICE PATTERN VĚC PATTERN Neuter nouns MĚSTO PATTERN No other new neuter nouns appear in this skill. A few extra verbs As you can imagine, the Czech verb endings will also supply lots of information. For now, let's not try to organize them into classes of patterns; there will be plenty of that later. Instead, here is a table of the present tense forms for the four new verbs that appear in this skill. The subject of the verb (even if it is an omitted subject pronoun) determines the verb ending by its number (singular vs plural) and person (first, second, or third). That's it. The present tense is not impacted by the gender of its subject in Czech. *Please note that the Czech verb shown for English "eat" is only applicable in standard Czech if the eater is an animal. Using it to describe the consumption of food by humans is rather coarse.